GE 171: Greg Smith Reveals How Thinkific Uses YouTube to Organically Drive $3-4K a Month in Additional Revenue (podcast)

Hey everyone, on today’s episode we’ve got Greg Smith, CEO of Thinkific, an all-in-one platform for independent experts and entrepreneurs to create, market and sell online courses.

Listen as we discuss how cold calls got Thinkific their first 50 customers, how Greg created an online course that got $10,000 in MRR which allowed him to start Thinkific, the simple funnel that Thinkific uses to grow revenue 30% MoM, and how they saw success by figuring out why people read their content and then monetizing the ‘why’.

Download podcast transcript [PDF] here: How Thinkific Uses YouTube to Organically Drive 3-4K a Month in Additional Revenue TRANSCRIPT

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:57 – Eric introduces Greg to the program
• 01:15 – Greg shares his background and a brief history of Thinkific
  • 01:25 – Greg launched his first online course 10 years ago
  • 01:34 – Also a security and capital markets lawyer
• 01:55 – What inspired Greg to get into online courses
  • 02:30 – Got to $10K MRR
• 02:50 – Made Thinkific a full-time gig 5 years ago
  • 03:40 – At the end of the day, make your mission about helping others succeed and you’ll succeed
• 04:19 – Thinkific’s differentiators
  • 04:35 – Stability, uptime, support team…you name it
  • 05:15 – Strong branding and e-commerce agenda as well
• 05:40 – Early course distribution
  • 05:53 – A lot of the strategies that worked 5 years ago still work today
  • 06:15 – Create great content and link to great tools
  • 06:43 – YouTube!
• 07:15 – Give away your best stuff for free
  • 07:40 – People go to YouTube to watch free videos
• 09:10 – Getting people to backlink when you have no brand
  • 09:55 – Make sure influencers or people with audiences are a part of your content development and your reach will grow
  • 10:15 – You can also try Reddit, but you have to be careful
• 11:30 – How Thinkific makes money?—Monthly subscription
• 12:00 – Today, Thinkific is used by more than 20,000 sites and has 23 employees
  • 12:19 – Recently had a few Angels get involved
• 12:40 – How Thinkific got its first 50 customers—cold-calling
  • 13:10 – Originally a really unscalable method
  • 13:43 – If people say no, that’s great
• 14:20 – Current customer acquisition
  • 14:32 – Higher level education for potential and current clients
  • 15:35 – When you educate customers, they become POWER users which expands reach and reduces churn
• 16:44 – One big struggle in growing Thinkific?—the daily setbacks…death by papercuts
  • 17:35 – Learn as much as you can from each little setback
• 17:53 – One big thing that has had a positive impact in Greg’s life?—having a daughter
• 19:00 – If you could go back in time and give your 25 year-old self ONE piece of advice, what would it be?
• • 19:06 – Invest in Home Depot, WalMart, Dell, Adobe, etc…also, keep having fun and doing what you’re doing
• 20:15 – Travel the world
  • 20:30 – Greg traveled in early 20s, mid 20s, and late 20s
• 21:20 – One BIG change Thinkific has made in the last year?—adding amazing people
  • 21:40 – Good hires accelerate EVERYTHING exponentially
• 22:20 – When you’ve passed the 6 person team-mark, read Verne Harnish’s Rockafeller Habits
• 23:15 – The Alchemist, The Lean Start-Up, and Scaling Up
• 23:40 – get.Thinkific.com/growtheverywhere

3 Key Points:

1. Adding amazing people to your company will exponentially grow your business.
2. Help others succeed and you will succeed.
3. Think about why people view your content and then find a way to monetize the why.

Resources from this interview:

• Thinkific
• Must-read books:
  • Rockafeller Habits
  • The Alchemist
  • The Lean Start-Up
  • Scaling Up